Author
Topic: Help: Cheap FF or high end Crop for next body? (Read 4797 times)

Support: Already have tripod and monopod, but don't use them much. I agree that they're great if you have the time and carrying capacity to devote to them, but as I mentioned I'm sensitive to weight and bulk issues. Moreover, as I mentioned I sometimes do stuff on travel, which further limits the space and time I have to devote to carrying and setting up equipment. I've been learning to brace myself (or even better, the camera) on a steady surface to steady shots when necessary, and I also break out the Gorillapod from time to time. Thanks for the tip though, it's a good one for those who can carry dedicated support equipment!

Macro: I'm indeed intrigued by it, and I'm definitely interested in adding it to the capabilities of my lenses, which is one of the reasons why I'm interested in the 24-70/4 L IS. While FF may be less ideal for Macro due to DoF issues, it's well-compensated by FF's advantages in low light.

Nikon Crop Sensors: Isn't one of the reasons that Nikon has a 1.5 crop factor? FF > 1.3 > 1.5 > 1.6. I would be surprised if Canon actually regularly outshone Nikon with its smaller sensors.

7D II: I'm definitely going to wait. If the 6D has a pricing history like the 5DIII, it should come down pretty well in price by next summer or so. By that time the 24-70/4 might also drop a bit (given the pricing history of other recent lenses), making the upgrade to FF more palatable. Since this is just one hobby among many, I really can't devote too much to it. I also need to upgrade my 2008 Macbook, for example. Thanks for reminding me of the anticipated 7DII though!

How Shaky: I haven't really bothered to quantify it, but my shots were regularly soft when I used my Sigma 17-70/2.8-4.5 (non-OS version). They instantly got a lot better when I got the 17-55/2.8 IS. Sure the glass might be sharper, but I know that's not the whole story. =) I appreciate the fact that a heavier body (perhaps with a lighter lens) will feel better balanced and more stable, especially when combined with the better ergos of the grip.

Other Lenses: I definitely agree that the world doesn't begin and end with f/4 zooms, and in fact I'm looking to get some fast primes now that they're being released with IS. I've been waiting for reviews on the 35/2 IS, but if I go FF I'll likely turn my eye towards the rumored 50/1.x IS. That said, slower zooms are cheaper than faster ones and still make versatile walk-around lenses, so I'd like to retain options in that arena.

Conclusion: It seems like FF is indeed the best option for the type of shooting I like to do, as I thought it might be. It's just a matter of seeing how much money the upgrade would really cost next year, and what the available options are at that time. If the 6D ends up getting a lot cheaper or the 7D II exhibits significantly less noise than the 7D, that will help inform my decision one way or another. I'll also be waiting on reviews of the 24-70/4 IS.

And despite me calling that the conclusion, feel free to post if you have other thoughts or recommendations.

Support: Already have tripod and monopod, but don't use them much. I agree that they're great if you have the time and carrying capacity to devote to them, but as I mentioned I'm sensitive to weight and bulk issues. Moreover, as I mentioned I sometimes do stuff on travel, which further limits the space and time I have to devote to carrying and setting up equipment. I've been learning to brace myself (or even better, the camera) on a steady surface to steady shots when necessary, and I also break out the Gorillapod from time to time. Thanks for the tip though, it's a good one for those who can carry dedicated support equipment!

Carbon Fibre tripods! They have one great advantage... they are very light. They have one great disadvantage... they are too light to be stable with a long lens or on a windy day. My shooting style is to put the pack on the ground, set up the tripod above it, and use a short piece of cord to tension the tripod to the pack. This drasticly improves stability.

1. I'd get fast primes or at least the newer primes with IS. That should cover you for now (with crop) and later (with FF)- in terms of increased light acquisition and shallower DoF, respectively.2. Get the 6D when the price is right.

Goals in upgrade: -Better noise in low light/high ISO situations- solved by 1-Good AF (AF point coverage and performance, speed in focusing, UI for point selection)- yes, with 2-Availability of lenses- contradicts with your pt. 5 since EF-S lenses won't be sealed anyway, you have only EF lenses to pick from, and a FF is no worse than APS-C in that regard-Low weight/physical size. (related: I won't be using two bodies)- can't be smaller and/or lighter than the 450D and still be an upgrade, unless we are looking into FF mirrorless -Environmental sealing- go for fast primes in 1, followed by 7DII or 5DIII. And you'd have to sell that 17-55, of course. No idea about weather sealing on the 6D.

If you have shaky hands, please take into account that a relatively heavy FF camera is harder to move than a lightweight crop camera. The 6D will be harder to shake, so to say.

The shaking of hands (for someone without a neurological condition) is proportional to the amount of weight borne. So greater the weight, more the shaking. FYI. This is one of the reasons a monopod is more effective than expected. It supports most of the weight, and even though you are holding on to the camera your hands shake less since they don't have to bear all that weight.

How Shaky: I haven't really bothered to quantify it, but my shots were regularly soft when I used my Sigma 17-70/2.8-4.5 (non-OS version). They instantly got a lot better when I got the 17-55/2.8 IS. Sure the glass might be sharper, but I know that's not the whole story. =)

This is really worth looking into a bit more, because you're really boxing yourself in and limiting your options by only using IS lenses. Unless you quantify it, there's no way of knowing that you need a shutter speed substantially faster than the typical photographer (by that I mean that even if you need twice as fast a shutter speed as the "average" photographer, this won't be a game changer as far as choosing lenses goes)

It may well be the case that you often have little need for IS, e.g. the extra stops you get from a fast prime might result in a good enough shutter speed to make up for the shake.

It's not that surprising that you found yourself "needing" IS using a variable aperture zoom lens on a crop. But maybe if your lens was 3 stops faster (or if you had a flash to add some light), you wouldn't have "needed" IS.

How does the noise compare on something like a 60D with 17-55/2.8 IS, vs. a 6D with 24-70/4 IS? If the 6D has to go up in ISO to compensate for the smaller aperture, will the resulting noise generally be more or less than the crop body at a lower ISO? How about a 7D instead of a 60D? In short, how does the low light benefit of going FF compare to the loss of a stop in aperture?

Thanks for any advice and help you can offer.

I upgraded to the 6D, and I miss my 17-55/2.8 IS.

You'll get a 1-stop advantage using the FF body from an ISO perspective, but it may take some learning to realize that you don't can't shoot at 1/8 anymore.

If you go with a f/4 IS lens, you can still shoot at the slow shutter speeds, with a stop higher ISO. That said, I'm looking at the Tamron 24-70/2.8 VC fairly closely and it might be a good fit. I'd trade some sharpness to drop a stop in ISO over the f/4 IS.

Also: noticed you're like me with the tripod habit of not carrying it. That's one of the reasons I like IS/VC/OS. I'd seriously consider IS despite it narrowing the lens options.

For example, the minimum focus distance is the same for a given lens whether you're full frame or crop, so the mfd for a given effective focal length is generally smaller for a crop (to put it another way, at magnification of 1x, an object 36mm wide fills a ff sensor, but an object 22.5mm wide fills an APS-C)

You usually have to stop down a long way to get enough dof with macro, so the extra dof in APS is a plus.

That's having your cake and eating it, too. The 'deeper DoF of APS-C' applies when you're talking about identical framing, meaning a greater subject distance with APS-C. When you're comparing APS-C to FF at 1:1, the APS-C frames a smaller subject and gives a shallower DoF - that's two advantages to FF, right there.

I don't see how these are really advantages to full frame. Let's go through the scenarios.

(1) you are not distance limited (that is, you can compose the shot you want on full frame without cropping). On APS-C you can stand further back and get the same shot which means more DOF.

(2) you are distance limited on both full frame and crop. That is, you need to crop in both formats to get the desired composition. This is the scenario you are suggesting that you get more DOF in full frame. But actually, in both cases you need to crop to an area that corresponds to a smaller region of the sensor than APS-C. As far as DOF formulas go, the right circle of confusion to use is that corresponding to the subset of the sensor whose pixels are used for the final image. So DOF is the same for both formats in this case, and APS-C puts more pixels on the subject.

(3) in the intermediate case, where APS-C is not distance limited but FF is (and therefore has to crop), it is almost the same as case (1), except that some subset of the FF sensor is used -- so it's analogous to APS-H versus APS-C. In this case, you still get greater dof with the crop, but you also put a moderately reduced number of pixels on the subject.

So I don't see where the scenario is under which FF really wins (or really has more dof for the same composition)

Also: noticed you're like me with the tripod habit of not carrying it. That's one of the reasons I like IS/VC/OS. I'd seriously consider IS despite it narrowing the lens options.

Yup. If I were a pro and were paid to have "serious" equipment around, and I regularly went out with the primary goal of shooting photographs (rather than other goals such as seeing the sights or having fun with family), and I didn't have foot issues, I'd be more inclined to carry more gear. And just to be clear, it's not just the weight but the size, as well as time and floor space needed to set up/break down support equipment, that really adds up. Monopods help with some of those issues, but IMO not enough.

Thanks again for the ideas, everyone. 2013 will be an interesting year for my gear bag, I can tell.

How does the noise compare on something like a 60D with 17-55/2.8 IS, vs. a 6D with 24-70/4 IS? If the 6D has to go up in ISO to compensate for the smaller aperture, will the resulting noise generally be more or less than the crop body at a lower ISO? How about a 7D instead of a 60D? In short, how does the low light benefit of going FF compare to the loss of a stop in aperture?

I'm pretty much in the same situation like you and I compared test images from dpreview.com between 7D and 5D MK II. It all depends on if you shoot in raw or JPG. At low ISO the 5D MK II is in raw about one stop better than the 7D. With JPG it's about 2 stops better, the 5D MK III even 3 stops (I suppose comparing 60D and 6D will have similar results).

So in terms of noise, when you shoot raw and you'll loose one stop because of a slower FF-lens - then it doesn't matter if you shoot FF or crop. You'll gain one stop through the sensor and loose one through the lens.

But FF has still the advantage of being sharper (depending on factors like lens-quality, aperture etc). Then there are the differenes in DoF and focal length between Crop and FF, which can be a plus or a disadvantage depending on the situation. Generall disadvantages of FF are weight and cost (that said, the 6d body is by the way even lighter then the 7d body).